Happy New Year from Mom

Dear family,

It has been a while since I last wrote.  Sorry about that.  I'm afraid that today I am going to overload you all with pictures!  Sorry about that as well.  As you know Shelley was able to come and spend Christmas and New Year's with us.  That was a wonderful treat.  We had a great time.  We were sorry to see her off at the airport on Tuesday night but it won't be long until we will be home again.

Right now our work is very slow as it is vacation time for a lot of people, including Fernando, so it is pretty quiet around the office.  Brazil has a law that you have to take your vacation time all at once.  Fernando won't be in the office for the entire month of January so we will have to really scrounge around to try to find something to do.  Luckily Dad has his missionary recommendation translations and I am helping with the family history reports.

We had a really good time with Shelley taking her around Sao Paulo and then to Iguacu Falls.  It is reported that when Eleanor Roosevelt saw Iguacu Falls she said, "Oh poor Niagara!"  It has recently been added to the Natural Wonders of the world list.  It is really beautiful.  There are either 275 or 276 individual falls that make it up.  Shelley said that to really see the falls you have to see it from the Brazil side as most of the falls are in Argentina.  But to experience it you have to be on the Argentina side and go on the boat ride.  They said that we would get wet and I don't think we would have been any wetter if we had gone and jumped into a swimming pool fully dressed!  It did feel good though as it was about 93* and with the humidity it felt hotter.  Dad's levis didn't ever dry out completely that day!

I hope that all of you are well and I hope that you will all have a very happy new year and be able to achieve your desires.  I am going to send a bunch of pics and it will have to be in several emails.  I hope you don't mind but I wanted to share some of this with you.

Love,

Mom/Paula

1.  at the Pinacotec museum

2.  I didn't know that Jakob had his picture displayed in Brazil!

3.  The Luz train station

4.  Jaca fruit (Jack fruit in Hawaii)  It can weigh up to 70 lbs.

5.  The oldest park in Sao Paulo

6.  These plants grow wild down here and get huge.  We use them as house plants back home.